Posts tagged ‘experimental’

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The new connect_icut album – Crows & Kittiwakes Wheel & Come Again – is now available on LP (with deluxe eight-page booklet) and CD. The most intense and cosmic expression of the connect_icut sound so far, it anchors all manner of granular chaos and glitched-out abstraction in a solid foundation of three-chord pop. But don’t take our word for it: listen to a couple of songs on Soundcloud or watch the video for “Imperial Alabaster”.

“A faultless album for those who want to immerse themselves totally in the flow of their own consciousness, for those looking for healthy and lawful means to cross the barriers of the senses.” Libero (Italy)

The new album from The Automatics Group is pretty upfront about its sample sources – each track is named according to the mainstream pop and house acts it borrows from (Swedish House Mafia, Deadmau5…) But anyone expecting a mash-up epic along the lines of Kid 606’s The Action Packed Mentallist Brings You the Fucking Jams is going to be severely disappointed.

Rather than cheekily re-contextualizing his source material The Automatics Group’s Theo Burt diffuses it into a Fourier-transformed mist of hiss and hum. The only recognizable element left over from contemporary dance-pop is the steady four-on-the-floor beat. But even this is reduced to a series of ornately minute clicks and pulses, which have more in common with late 90s glitch-techno. Indeed, the most obvious points of reference here are GAS and Basic Channel.

That doesn’t quite cover it, though. As the album title may suggest, this music avoids the deep-in-the-woods dankness of GAS or the skunky fug of Basic Channel, delivering a ravishing blue-skied clarity. This clarity is all the more remarkable given the claustrophobic, over-compressed sound of the music music Summer Mix samples. The whole album has a sense of presence unusual for a 2010s digital production and the dynamic range is startlingly wide by any standards.

All of which makes it easy to speculate about what The Automatics Group might be trying to say with this project. Perhaps this is an attempt to suggest a more open, unashamedly cerebral alternative to contemporary pop’s bullish insistence that you must party hard. But it would be frankly wrong to impose this here blog’s ideological agenda on such a simply, stunningly gorgeous record.

And in any case, the Group has provided a fairly detailed explanation of the rather extraordinary process used to create the album, which suggests that a formalistic focus on pure aesthetics is the goal here – certainly, no other agenda is stated or strongly implied. You can read it at the label’s website, where you can also purchase a copy of the CD, which comes vacuum-sealed within a beautifully-designed antistatic bag, as Entr’acte releases generally are.

“An evening of fearless, underground experimentation by some of the doughtiest musicians in south-western BC. Guest curated byJeremy Van Wyck, Bill Batt and Anju Singhcreators of the dynamic and storied series.

Andrea Lukic Presents Exhausted Monologues Performed by the bassist/vocalist of Nü Sensae, Andrea Lukic’s project is an unrelenting take on sampling and soliloquy. Through extreme repetition of frequencies, tones and cut-up dialogue customized to suit a variety of emotional states, the project is a mutated version of Exposure and Response Therapy often used by therapists to treat patients with OCD anxieties.

Froghat
Victoria’s Soma Morse (audio) and Gerald Hogrefe (video) bring their own brand of multi-media experimentation with an audio-visual collaboration of abstract animation in interaction with harsh, atmospheric ambient and dense frequencies.

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Finishing up the evening is a brand new supergroup of some of Vancouver’s foremost electronic mavericks. Members of Coin Gutter, connect_icut, Ejaculation Death Rattle and Scant Intone have formed a refined and cultivated approach to digital improvised audio. Their sound incorporates real-time digital signal processing, primal vocals and unconventional tuning systems (just intonation). This will be their debut live performance, with visuals courtesy of Julie Gendron.”

Advance tickets available via telephone or in person at the Western Front (Tuesday-Friday, 12 noon-5PM, until 5PM Friday November 19th, 604-876-9343) or and atZulu Records (1972 West 4th Avenue, 604-738-3232).

“Come on out to Nyala for cheap drinks and inexpensive (and tasty) appetizers, plus a an eclectic mix of experimental electronic music, electronic and acoustic improvisation, a touch of noise and other genres – all home-grown in Vancouver. Nyala African Cuisine has served Vancouver for the last 20 years. We serve a diverse variety of food from many parts of Africa including Ethiopia, Morocco and South Africa, using fresh ingredients found locally in Vancouver. We are a fully licensed eating establishment that serves an excellent selection of wine and beer from South Africa and British Columbia.”